brain

321: Don’t make me look at you!

| Aspergers Girls

Don’t make me look at you

I am often depleted energetically in new environments with unfamiliar people. Part of the reason is because I am empathic and can innately pick up on others’ emotions and state of being. The other part of the reason I am energetically depleted seems to be entirely biological, at least in the way my brain senses the stimuli around me and in the way I process the input I am receiving as a result of the stimuli.

Sometimes, quite frankly and honestly, I would be a better listener and friend, if I didn’t have to look at you.

Because I am extremely analytical, acutely self-aware, and live in a heightened state of sensory awareness, I often forget that the majority of mainstream society does not process their environment the same as me.

I forget that the majority of people are not responding to me in the same way as I am inexplicably responding to them.

The first part of my energetic depletion is spawned from the belief system that I am being sliced and diced and dissected visually by another, only because when I spot another, I generally have to take each piece of person apart and put the features back together to make sense of what I am seeing. As a result, distinct markers of a face and body are found, categorized and reorganized.

I try to take apart another perosn and piece him or her back together without being judgmental. In other words, if a “big” nose is the first thing I see, I remind myself that “big” is a judgment and based on my limited perception and biased collective experiences, while understanding that societal norms determine the essence of beauty for most folks, norms which are indoctrinated onto a sub-culture by profiteering establishments.

Thusly, as I’m beholding another’s appearance, and trying to make sense of what I am seeing, in regards to features and taking in the whole picture, I am also simultaneous reminding myself that the individual’s features are not right or wrong, good or bad, or striking or dull, they just are.

And beneath this linear thinking of releasing judgment based on the indoctrination of societal norms, in the same juxtaposition, of me being with me, I am trying to remind myself, that according to many spiritual belief systems, that self and this other person in my line of vision do not even exist.

All of these thoughts pass through me, just as I am stepping into the line of vision of another: the release of judgment, the reminder of the limitless of the illusion of universe, and the fact that I am entirely analytical when it comes to viewing another.

And the added fact that I know way too much for my own good (and would apparently make a good sitcom character).

With all of my thought-processing, I become distracted and don’t realize that the other person I am analyzing is most likely not viewing me in the same manner as I am viewing him or her.

While my mind is shooting a million miles per second, the other person’s mind has probably just thought: nice red sweater or there’s a brunette middle-age woman; or, if it’s my husband: There’s my hot wife.

But I forget this.

Somewhere between wondering if my fly is open, my teeth are flossed, my nose is big, my hair is brushed, and if I matched the right color socks, and wondering what the other person is dissecting about me, and what this makes that person think, and how he or she has categorized and judged me and has fit me into his or her comfort-level of classification, I turn into a tailspin of panic, fearing that the other person is not only doing to me what I am doing to him or her, through dissection and examination of part, but also reaching conclusions based on the data received.

Ultimately, when all is said and done, in the midst of my boggling analysis of said other person, I am fearing the conclusion the other person has reached about me, whether it be red sweater or big-breasted tart; I am wanting to huddle into a corner and make myself entirely invisible and inaccessible to onlookers.

Wherein if I lived in a world where I was masked and cloaked, and perhaps entirely invisible, I think my anxiety, and resulting depletion of energy, would be drastically reduced.

But since I live in a world where I am seen, I am also faced with the fact that I am judged and categorized based on my appearance.(It’s no wonder my son with ASD refuses to wear anything other than plain clothes—no designs, no images, no nothing.)

And in so being keenly aware that I am looked upon with deciphering eyes, whether fleeting the observer’s glance be or not, I want to then explain to the observer as much about my true self as possible, fearing that the person has reached conclusions about me that are entirely false and inaccurate, because the gathered data is based solely on my exterior.

In the meanwhile, I am having a miniature debate in my mind about how the release of fear and the release of worrying about whatever people think of me is optimal for my state of well-being and reciting the random quote that says: what people think of me is none of my business, while holding back an entire dam of dialogue longing to be thrust upon the person returning my glance, so that I might attempt to accurately describes my spirit behind this cloak of humanness.

When all is said and done, all of these processed thoughts, (including the deductions of reasonings circling around the non-beneficial and detrimental effects a fear-based outlook to the collective of spirit, mind and body), have left me wiped out, and wondering how it is that up until this point in my life I have not become dependent on the port wine I savor some evenings, or at least a stiff shot of cough syrup.

For my brain is such a grand uniform of thought that even a sergeant general, marked with the stoic stars and stripes, could not maneuver his troops inside me to find the potential threat of enemy.

And then, with the coming of more and more rushing thoughts, I begin to laugh inside, realizing again that more than likely the stranger is not analyzing my distinct features; and then the sadness settles in, or at least what seems like sadness, but of late seems more akin to the knowing I am different and likely a different species of human all together.

In the meanwhile, with all of these aforementioned thoughts, my mind is continually involved in a game of connect–the-dots, bringing all the facial features together to make a collective whole.

And quite frankly sometimes I don’t like what I see. And then there is always the lingering notion, that this is all much-to-do about nothing, because if I was ever to see this person again, I wouldn’t recognize him anyways, because I cannot retain visual images of faces in my memory banks.

By this time, when my thoughts have run full course into a state of exhaustion, the person I was looking at has either moved on and out of my view or he or she has moved on in conversation. And where the person is left waiting for me to respond to something said, that she assumed I heard, just as she assumed I was ready to listen, I am still wondering, if in fact, if I look older or younger than this person, because I have wrinkles under my right eyes in the same way, and likely the same depth; and this person is still so pretty even with the marks of age; and I wonder if the wrinkles are appearing more engraved because of the lighting and what the person would look like in an alternative setting, with say a red scarf instead of green; and if her hair is naturally blonde, or now with her aging, recently dyed; and when I should stop dying my hair; and if I remembered to mark my hair appointment on the calendar, and why at times I seem so forgetful.

Through all the analysis piled upon rhetoric and philosophical jargon, added to the process of scaffolding current information with past information and connecting other to self, and the tangent of strings my mind travels to, I am left literally spent, my pockets of reserve penniless, and my wallet flung open for the taking.

And so it is I wonder, when the others, perhaps less aware of this process, say: “Look at me, while I’m talking to you.”

I wonder if a person realizes what one glance, what one look, what one simple demand, demands of me.

Pass me the port, please.
~~~~~~~~~~

(dang if I ain’t one prolific goofball and a half)

Post 241: Brain Pain

| Aspergers Girls

Sometimes I have a good laugh at myself, like when I think back to the other day, (actually it was several days in a row), when I told myself I didn’t need to verbally process anymore; that after 240 days of blogging, I was good to go; that everything had been cleared and cleaned out of my head.

I actually believed I was no longer troubled with thoughts and logical reasoning and cluttered ideas and inspiration and nonstop jibber-jabber of the brain. I was a housewife, a mother, a cleaner of all things grime and cooker of all things organic. I wasn’t this complex person requiring repetitive time of deep processing.

HA! I shout HA!

I actually thought I am entirely NT (neurotypical) and I’ve created all this Asperger’s mumbo-jumbo in my head. I actually thought and thought and thought…until I realized I was thinking an awful lot! So much so, that I likely had Aspergers.

And I got all twisted in my thoughts, again analyzing that perhaps I was trying on the persona of an Asperger’s person for size, actually inhaling and emulating Asperger’s traits because I needed an identity to function in life. That in truth, I was perfecting said Aspergers, as Aspergers was my new inspirational role.

Yes, I’d garbed the facade of an Aspie woman to the state of complete life-like amazement.

And if this be true, if in fact I was a woman convincing herself she had Aspergers, so she knew who to be and how to act (role) in order to function, was that insanity?

And what is insane? And who isn’t insane? Or more so, who is sane?

Then, after hamping (think of my thoughts as a mad, bad ass hamster on a wheel), I concluded, like I have done more than a trillion-dozen times throughout this blogging endeavor, that if indeed I was once again taking on the persona of Aspergers to feel safe in the world, as I need a role to feel safe, then indeed I had Aspergers. Brain Pain!

Hmmmmmm.

So last night, I’m thinking, at the late hour of eleven o’clock as I’m watching reruns of the show Glee, and getting all tingly like I get when I hear good music, that I ought not have coffee after the noon hour because then I can’t sleep and my thoughts speed up like Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory.

Then I’m thinking, I relate way too much to characters on television, and how much more superb and brainiac-ish if I related to characters in books. But I don’t. So I’m stuck as a character on television.

So as I’m processing, basically alone, as the rest of the household is sound asleep, including Spastic Colon, aka: my labradoodle Violet, I’m starting to get stomach pangs of growing anxiety, dread, and fear. I’m telling myself it’s the dang coffee, as well as my binge into the wheat-zone. (I try to avoid gluten as it increases thoughts of impending doom….like dying of toe fungus or a nose pimple).

I keep reassuring myself all is okay. That much of what I’m experiencing is bio-chemical, while cursing to the star-fairies: Why do I have to be so fricken sensitive to everything on this planet! But the reassuring (and cursing) isn’t working, because the episode of Glee happens to be about the adorable school counselor having OCD and taking  medication to ease her symptoms.

And I get so tangled up on tiny-amounts-of-anger when I hear the overdone generic fallback, over used by psychiatrists (when speaking of medication) for over a decade now, that hums to the tune of: “If you had diabetes, you’d need insulin. This is no different.” And in my mind, I’m screaming, “Dang straight it’s different. Diabetes is proven and shown on blood tests. It’s in black and white. Plain as day. Mental challenges (issues, trouble, illness, etc.) are not that black and white. It’s not so simple!

And that got me thinking, do I need medication? My husband would shout an adamant NO, as the last time, some six years ago, I was on low dose anti-depressant I ended up with suicidal thoughts. My natural path doctor would concur, and advice continuing my strict diet of healthy eating and supplements/herbs.  But beyond that, what would other professionals think? And what are the professionals’ experiences? And how do they know what’s best for me? And who knows what’s best for me anyhow……  And all these thoughts spun off a minute-long section of a comedy/singing/drama show I’m watching on the boob-tube.

At this point I’m exhausted, but too awake to sleep.

Next came the wave of panic that ensued after I opened an envelope—an envelope from the university I attended for one semester when I was stuck on working towards a second master’s degree; until I was humiliated and discriminated against by the professor(s), and high-tailed it out of the university on my own therapist’s advice, and my inability to stop my crying and my trembling-fear of returning.

Months later, in reflection, I realized, if the terror at the college hadn’t occurred, likely this blog would not exist….so alas, I understand.

The panic I felt upon opening the envelope was energy related to the university.  The university had sent me another bill; a bill that is likely a mistake on their part; which means, once again, I’ll have to play phone tag to try to clear up the financial issue. And this sets me into coffee-plus-wheat induced terror state.

Impending thoughts:

1) What if they are right and I owe that money?

2) What if they are wrong but don’t figure it out and it goes to a collection agency and their error ruins my credit?

3) Boy was I rude when I left that message on the phone to the finance department tonight. Is it okay to get mad? I rarely get mad? What type of example am I setting? That’s not me. Should I apologize when they call? Why should I apologize? Everyone gets mad once in a while. His Holiness the Dalai Lama even says so.

4) The last time they said I owed thousands of dollars, I took them on their word and wrote a check, and then they sent the same amount back to me. What is their problem.

5) Wow, I still have lots of unresolved issues around the university. Maybe I should have sued them. No. That’s not right. That doesn’t feel right. I wonder how much money I might have gotten. Hmmmm?

6) Why is this bugging me so much? I have Aspergers, so the envelope was unexpected…surprise equals panic and fear. Answer: Unresolved financial matters makes me nervous. It is hard to relax until the situation is resolved. I  feel wrongly misjudged and like I did something bad when I haven’t done anything wrong. I am looping on the word “Collection Agency” if not paid by October 21,2012. How could I pay that fast when I just got the envelope?

And now my brain spins on numbers. Months. Days of the week. And back to the money numbers. Round and round with digits and doubts.

7) Deep breaths. Maybe I do need to still verbally process through writing. Maybe.

Day 47: Ode to the Amazing Asperger’s Brain!

| Aspergers Girls

Fun Brain Musical Video  (Fun for All Ages!)

At the age of two and a half, from the backseat of the car, Joseph asked: “Who birthed God?” and “How do you know?”

Many People with Aspergers Have  a Strong Ability to:

Reason

Identify patterns

Think abstractly

Find creative solutions

Talk through problems

Adapt

 Look at old problems differently

Speak their mind irrespective of social norms and standards

Uphold an adherence to personal beliefs

Think of new ideas

Have a high focus level

Experience intrinsic reward through thought processing

 

Here’s a look inside the amazing brain of a child with Aspergers. Below are approximately 5% of the questions my thirteen-year-old son, Joseph, who has Aspergers, asked me during a week’s time. Joseph asks questions at random, seemingly from out of the blue.

This morning on a four-minute drive to school:

What if the earth was square. How would that affect gravity? Did people understand the world wasn’t flat after or before they discovered gravity? I wonder what the world would be like if we never discovered the earth was round. I probably wouldn’t even be here.

Yesterday morning, while sipping his green tea:

 I wonder how the world would have changed if we had inventions earlier? Like navigational devices for the Titanic. You never know. But then again, then Hitler would have had access to such inventions.

 Questions all in a row:

How come people are bald on their head and not on their arms? Why don’t they improve things? Like the Titanic. How come the Titanic Crashed? Why wasn’t it steal plated? Didn’t they have radar back then? What a minute. How can we be a trillion dollars in deficit? Whose job is it to make zippers? I just realized something: we need dumb people to do simple jobs. Not that all people who do simple jobs are dumb. But we need them.

A few days ago, in the car:

 If everything is digital now, are we living more in a fake reality or real reality? When you think about it we are accidentally unknowingly transferring things to different dimensions. I mean where does electricity all go? Is it in the clouds?

Fantastic Video on Genius of Autism

Quantum Physics Musical Video

Crazy Frog side note: My dog licks dishes from the dishwasher. Apparently other people’s dogs lick dishes out of dishwashers, too. Good to know!

30 Second video of dog licking dishes…Don’t ask!

Day Twenty-Two: Brain, Little Voice, and Me

| Aspergers Girls


Have you ever been in one of those relationships where the person is highly intriguing, passionate, and overall seems like a very likeable gal, but for some reason, you can’t stand to be around her? That’s the type of relationship I’m currently in. Only it’s not exactly with a person….. It’s with my brain!

Brain and I, we go a long way back. Yet, I’m still trying to figure him out. Sometimes I try to understand Brain more by comparing him to other brains.

For instance, just the other day, I asked my husband, “What are you thinking about?”  He responded, “Nothing.” And I said, “What? You’re joking. Really? Absolutely nothing?”

He thought (or did something) for awhile, and then answered, adamantly, “Nope. Nothing.” Now, by this time I’m laughing, in that annoying I-do-know-better way, wanting to knock my knuckle on his head, and say: “Hello, in there!”

Later, I asked my eldest son, the same question. And his answer mirrored his father’s. “Well, what were you thinking about a few minutes ago, then?” I queried. “I don’t know, Mom. Leave me alone. Nothing important.” (He’s fourteen.)

Now, get this. When I asked my middle son, “What are you thinking about?”, he gave me a thirty-minute dissertation. Can you guess which one has Aspergers?

I didn’t bother to ask my baby-boy, Robert; he was too busy securing plastic wrap over a clear plastic cup that he’d carefully filled with the blood he’d collected from his bloody nose. He was saving the blood for future science experiments. I easily guessed what he was thinking about.

Movies are interestingly-annoying with Brain. There are times I  have to press the pause button on the remote during a film, because I’m so excited by the fact that I was actually enjoying the show for five minutes strait without brain interruption!

This is a super big explanation mark deal in my book, because usually when a movie is playing, some 99.99 % of the time, LV (Little interior Voice in my head) and I are carrying on an entire conversation.

I noticed today that LV is starting to have a full personality. Which causes my stomach to rumble, somewhat in fear. Because I fret I may end up with yet another neurological disorder. And there’s only so many LV and I can keep track of.

I picture LV like Laverne, from the show Laverne and Shirley. Like Laverne, LV has letters monogrammed onto her tight sweater (LV), and she’s totally clueless that her sweater is too tight. So she looks like a loosey-goosey, even though she doesn’t mean to appear that way. She’s like me, when I wore those glossy yellow shorts, during freshman class physical education, that were way too short; yet, I hadn’t a clue why the boys and girls were calling me those names. I’m picturing Rudolph the reindeer crying. I’m fine. Santa and the elves loved Rudolph.

Not to should on LV, but she should have a question mark right along side her LV monogram. It’s all about inquiry with that chick. Here’s the typical repertoire of clauses she choses from, while I attempt to watch a romantic, carefree comedy:

Is this the director’s first movie? I wonder how much that actress got paid? Do you think Shakespeare knew actresses would be idols one day?  Is this a box office hit, for real? Wow, nice hair; maybe I should get my haircut. Look, did you see her pause for a whole fricken five minutes to let the other person talk?  How does she do that? Is that normal? Is that what I’m supposed to do? Oh my goodness, do you think she realizes what the plastic surgery did to her face? That can’t be her? Is that her? Should I pause the movie and ask? I want that table wear. Is that materialistic of me? The blue is so pretty. What color is that? Cobalt. Cobalt is a strong sounding word…

Which leads me back to the whole: I wouldn’t want to be my brain’s friend argument. Not that LV is my brain; my brain is mostly a man. LV’s more like the cute cuddly ambassador of my brain. And I have no idea why my brain is not homogenous, probably because he/she has a right and left hemisphere, but I feel invaded by one side—if you must know.

You might have noticed, beyond the rambling, that I used the word  fricken, earlier. That’s because LV doesn’t like to swear, beyond crap and poop head. She does have fun turning harsh “bad words” into less offensive words that sound dorky. Oh, and she does call our little female labradoodle the B-word, only because that’s logical. She also calls the dog spastic-colon!

LV kept me awake last night. Her and the caffeine I had after the noon hour. Anyone, who’s had that can’t sleep ‘cause I’m caffeinated experience, knows the agony.  Now add LV to the picture. Well, I’m twisting and turning in bed, illogically trying do to the same thing over and over again, while expecting a different outcome; even thinking if I fluffed the pillow just right, I’d suddenly slumber, when bam! Smack out of nowhere, a parade of words and numbers start drumming in my head.

They were in a row, all these words and numbers, flashing at me, like the letters and digits in the television show The Electric Company.

I just made a whammy of a flashback-connection: I loved Electric Company because the show was all about words and numbers! And all these years, I thought I liked the show for the Gorilla and his bananas.

Here are some of the words I saw as I tried to fall asleep:

Pretty Sure, Maybe, Kind of, Almost Certain, Could Be, Probably, Perchance, Most Likely, We’ll See, Perhaps

LV, obviously awake from the caffeine as well, was trying to figure out how to assign a statistical number to each word to determine which word/phrase indicated a more likelihood of occurrence. For instance, when parents say, “We could be going to get ice cream later,” is that a more probable chance than parents saying, “I’m pretty sure we’re going to get ice cream later.”

LV reasoned Pretty Sure earned a 95.5% and Could be was very open to interpretation, perhaps a 51%—dependent upon tone of voice and inflection.

LV was going on and on with this theoretical rhetoric, until she concluded that all the words are ambiguous and confusing. All this while I’m side-kicking my husband for snoring and shoving my earplugs into what had to be my eardrums.

In the television series House, during one episode, this genius-type male patient is deathly ill, and the reason for his sickness turns out to be cough syrup. He had been drinking (and hiding) a large amount of cough syrup to stop himself from having complex and profound thoughts. Primarily, he wanted to stop the thoughts, so he could stay with his hot babe of a wife (who was clueless-brained) without being bored to death.

LV is reminding me of this episode and encouraging grape-flavored cough syrup. Like that’s even a feasible idea? Like I said, LV is not the type of friend one chooses. No offense LV.

I had another thought, but I can’t remember now—probably, because LV is upset.

I did want to share that I realized something about music and my relationship to music. A song was playing on the radio this morning, and immediately I became lost in my mind. Which makes me wonder, if I should be driving.

The experience was similar to stepping into a music video, only without all the sexy clothes and makeup, and weird body movements that ooze of I’m cheap, (or maybe drunk).

While I was one with the song, (Ommmmm), I was still me, but had Santa Claus powers enabling me to magically stop time. In the musical experience I visited everyone in the entire world who was sad and lonely. I saw myself stepping into strangers’ homes and staring into their eyes. I saw myself releasing mass amounts of pain and misgivings, and lifting many in spirit, so they could recognize their inner beauty. It was amazing! In moments like that, when my brain enables me to be in the music, I forgive him/her for all transgressions.

One more thing, before I head out to pick up my son and take him to Thai food… Can you hear my tummy cheering! Thai food! Thai food! He (tummy) is wearing a cheerleading skirt and looks completely (avoiding totally) dorky.  Oh no, I think my tummy is forming a personality, too.  Shootness, I just realized all my internal organs have genders! Please Google that and tell me if that’s another neurological disorder. No, don’t.

I better stop myself now, before I make this the longest post in blog history. (Thinking of the end of the Rudolph song: You’ll go down in history.) Have a good one. I’ll be chowing down on Pad Thai and assigning Sir Names to all my internal organs. I’m thinking the most of me is masculine internally. What’s that mean?